Shropshire Star comment: Tax rises to pay for bobbies?

That's the message to the community coming out of the new central funding settlement for West Mercia Police from the Home Office, which is giving police and crime commissioner John Campion the power to increase the take from the council tax as a way of boosting police numbers.

It's swings and roundabouts then for the taxpayers and another choice to be made. Ask anybody if they want more "bobbies on the beat" and they will say yes. Ask if they want their council tax to go up and they will say no.

So the question is, what is going to be the public attitude to the promise of having more bobbies on the beat paid for by an increase in council tax?

The new settlement sees West Mercia get an extra £2.3 million, but also lets Mr Campion double the council tax precept. Potentially that could mean a rise of £12 to £24 for a Band D property.

“I can reassure that any proposals I make around increase in council tax will mean extra for the community, whether that’s improvements to services or an increased visibility,” says Mr Campion.

He also points out that he has previously announced an additional 100 officers. There were recruitment events throughout the force area from December 4 to 11, so this work is evidently already under way.

However, it is misleading to see this as an "increase" in force numbers, as it will merely see them return to something approaching previous levels. The headcount of police officers in West Mercia in the quarter up to September was 1,916. In the same period in 2017 the figure was 2,041.

Mr Campion is launching a consultation on his budget next week and says council tax payers will be able to give their views.

The increase in the core budget is obviously good news, but against a background of rising costs and demand it is probably not going to do much more than help West Mercia stand still, so it is this proposal to draw on a significant rise in the police slice of the council tax which may offer the best chance to bring significant and visible improvements.

Mr Campion argues that a rise would only be a very small amount, for an important service.

Given the importance of what the police do, there will be a lot of people in the community who think paying a bit more council tax to get more police officers is a deal they can live with.